Tale of Two Terror Attacks In Pakistan

The Pakistani Taliban (Tarik-e-Taliban Pakistan - TTP) have claimed
responsibility for today's attack on the US
consulate offices in Peshawar
that left 6 dead according to the latest
reports. Al-Qaeda's Pakistani terrorist allies said US
drone attacks on al-Qaeda and
the Pakistani Taliban are the cause.

According to reports, the attack was of the bomb
and swarm
variety, where a truck bomb blasts through the security perimeter and
armed
gunmen then follow through the breach. But with only six dead, likely
all or
nearly all from the blast itself, the swarm that followed was of little
effect.
Whether this was because of the terrorist's ineffectiveness or alert
security
or both is a matter that is currently being analyzed by counterterrorism
officials in the US
and in Pakistan.
Two
of the dead were Pakistani security employees of the US
consulate.

The US
drone attacks are indeed very effective and often
even
crippling to the Taliban and al-Qaeda inside Pakistan. It is believed
that many
of the terrorists have been forced from their comfortable lairs in North
and South Waziristan and elsewhere and
into cities like
Kirachi out of fear of drone attacks. While troubling for Kirachi,
Pakistani
security forces operate with dominance there, not the terrorists in
their Waziristan backyards.

This is why, regardless of terrorist threats and
attacks,
drone operations should continue without pause or regret. The
effectiveness of
the "Drone War" has pushed the Taliban and al-Qaeda from their once
comfortable
lairs, in conjunction with commendable effort on the ground by the
Pakistani
military - an effort not seen by Pakistan until Pakistan's military
leader
General Kiyani and CENTCOM commander General David Petraeus had direct
meetings
and saw eye to eye on the matter at hand.

Peshawar is the
gateway city
on the edge, lying between the largely Anglicized and civilized majority
of Pakistan
and the wild west that is the Federally Administered Tribal Areas
(FATA). It is
a hotbed of terrorist activity and has been for decades.

Traveling in Peshawar,
shops can be seen flying the black jihadist flag of al-Qaeda. But this
is more
often than not done by the shop owners for protection against reprisal
rather
than a belief in the ideology. Fear in Peshawar
is deep and real, and al-Qaeda's presence is no mystery. And the city
lies at
the edge of to spheres of influence - the Pakistani government and
terrorists -
including al-Qaeda and the Taliban, which have been waging a usually
slow-motion insurgency against the government of Pakistan for years.

Western and Pakistani government buildings and
personnel in Peshawar
are relatively
easy targets for al-Qaeda and the Taliban for proximity reasons. Similar
attacks deeper into Pakistan
proper require much more effort, including more discrete bomb making and
enhanced secrecy of planning and execution. The terrorists are capable -
as
they have demonstrated in the past - but it is a higher hurdle to clear
than Peshawar, even in Pakistan.
There is that to draw on
in the aftermath of the attacks.

The bombing came just hours after another suicide
attack
deeper in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Dir. There, a
suicide
bomber detonated
himself
amidst a crowd that had gathered for a Awami National Party (ANP)
rally. The ANP is a secular party much hated by the Islamists of
al-Qaeda and
the Taliban. And Dir is an area where Osama bin Laden was once thought
to have
long taken refuge after fleeing from US forces in Afghanistan.
That attack, carried
out by the same murderous Islamist animals, had nothing to do with drone
attacks and everything to do with killing secularists for being
secularists.
And it was notably deeper into the tribal areas, not Pakistan
proper.

It's also worth mentioning that the same terrorists
have
again attacked
NATO
supply convoys making their trek from the Pakistani port city of Kirachi to the forces in Afghanistan.

The al-Qaeda and Taliban terror attacks and threats
will
continue. But attacks against US installations will continue to prove
less
fruitful for the terrorists than those directed at the Pakistani people.
Look
at the cost/benefit for the terrorists in yesterday's attacks in Peshawar vs. Dir.
One was
immensely expensive and achieved little aside from headlines. The other
required one suicide bomber and smote 30 Pakistanis from this earth. For
that
reason, we will continue to see much more of one than the other.